As society moves towards increasingly specialized professions, there is also a rising need for new job candidates to achieve higher education requirements. Typically, this includes a bachelor's degree, or its equivalent, from an accredited higher education institution. In some countries, such as the United States of America, higher education can be an expensive choice which, coupled with financial uncertainty, may prove risky for a university candidate.
It is estimated that roughly nineteen billion ($19B) US Dollars are spent annually on excess credits, which students are not required to achieve in order to graduate. This excess spending often occurs due to complicated registration processes and prerequisite courses which may not be evident early on in a candidate's choice of a curriculum. While this is a clear disadvantage for students, it also presents a challenge to institutions. It is estimated that roughly half of candidates in the United States do not graduate within 6 years from entering college.
One particular issue for ensuring prompt graduations is that there is no way to efficiently determine the optimal study path for any particular student from the beginning of college. The number of potential combinations of courses that any given student may undergo during his or her course of study is astronomical. Even in smaller programs with limited numbers of courses offered, the number of potential combinations of courses over the course of a multiple year degree can easily be in the millions. As a result, students may begin taking courses without a clear study path in mind, thereby leading to undesirable results ranging from cramming in courses toward the end of their studies to ultimately missing important classes and delaying graduation. As a result, the completion time and costs are more than what the students initially planned for. For example, currently only about 50% of the students compete their degree within 6 years and about 30% of the community colleges' students graduate within 3 years.
Existing solutions for planning study paths are very limited and in most cases such solutions do not guide or prevent students from taking incorrect courses. An example for such solution is a degree auditing that provides a list of requirements for a student's major or minor such as, for example, required courses, minimum numbers of credits, research or other non-classroom requirements, and so on. At best the degree auditing solution would prevent enrollment of students in courses which the students have not met the prerequisites for. For example, a student may be prevented from enrolling in Calculus II if that student has not yet taken Calculus I.
The existing solutions do not, however, guide a student's study path based on broader goals such as a student's career or educational plans. Moreover, such solutions do not factor in scheduling per semester based around a student's employment or other particular requirements. As a result, such solutions are not capable of ensuring correct curriculum choices for student study paths based on student goals and other restrictions.
Furthermore, currently a career advisor or counselor at best may advise on profession options that may fit the student's interests. However, due to the number of course combinations and schools in which a student may obtain the qualifications to practice the profession, a career advisor cannot provide the student with an optimal study path that ensures the student's graduation based on the student's goals and educational requirements.
Additionally, existing solutions cannot accurately predict attendance levels for various courses. Such an inability to predict attendance frequently leads to problems such as failing to have enough teachers and/or sections open to allow maximum attendance and interfering with students' study paths by preventing students from taking courses that are key to the study paths at the desired times. Alternatively, this inability to predict attendance may lead to overbooking of courses, thereby needlessly wasting educational resources such as teachers and classrooms.
It would therefore be advantageous to provide a solution that would overcome the deficiencies of the prior art by generating an optimized course catalog.